Clan Ghost Bear

To motivate myself painting my last battlemechs, I participated in the end of the year contest on the Battletech Facebook page. I build a hexagon base to fit all 4 mechs on it as a display for my Lance.

Directly following my Mad Cat, I finished my next mech. A light 25 ton Bear Cub. This little fellow was directly designed by clan Ghost Bear so it will perfectly fit into my force.

I painted it in the same way as the Mad Cat, before trying to mach the Delta Galaxy colors. Finishing it off with free hand insignias and warning signals to get some eye catchers. The kit came in 4 parts, consisting of the two arms, the upper torso and the legs. I put it together straight out of the box since it looks really cute without converting anything. The quality on this one was much better than the Mad Cat, just the joints on the shoulders had to been cut of a bit to fit the arms.

size comparsion between a 25 ton Bear Cub and a 90 ton Mad Cat Mk II

Delta Galaxy insignia on left shoulder

Ghost Bear clan insignia on right shoulder

It looks tiny compared to my assault mech, but for a light second rank mech it mounts weapons to be effective at any range. Next I probably will do a Mad Dog. Stay tuned.

Since I’m doing a lot of historical and fantasy stuff lately, it is time for some science fiction. Keeping that in mind I’m going back to a real classic game. Battletech. I painted my first mech for my clan “Ghost Bear” force. A iconic Mad Cat (wich is by far my favorite Battlemech). I’m going roughly with the Delta Galaxy paint scheme of grey with some blue highlights.

I converted this one slightly to get a more dynamic pose, lifting the right leg and cut of the ankle to glue it in a proper position for the foot. It came out quiet nice in the end, at the cost of some sturdiness of the whole miniature (considering that the upper body just is a heavy bulk of metal). To make the torso removable I added small magnets into the joints which really helps transporting the Cat (and I can traverse the torso now, to aim for the enemy ;)).

size comparsion, 28mm Bolt Action british

magnets on torso joints

I used VMC USMC Tank Highlight as the base colour, for the light gray I just brightened it up with white and added black for the dark grey parts. For the blue highlights I used GW kantor blue, brightend up with some old Pegasus light blue. Since I was to lazy and maybe to stingy to buy all the waterslight transfers I need, I just did some rough freehands.

All in all, it was a nice kit but you have to put in much clean up work to get rid of all the mold lines (I didn’t get all). But in the end I got a really awesome Battlemech which hopefully crushes all enemy resistance 🙂